Carlos Brown Likely Out Against Iowa

Brown, who has been forced to step up this season with Minor limited by injuries, was wearing a red jersey (signifying an injury) and sweatpants at yesterday’s practice. He watched his fellow running backs from the sidelines as they stretched and broke off into position groups.

A reliable source says this is because he was concussed in a full-contact drill and he is very doubtful for this weekend. Minor is also still somewhat limited, so expect a fair dose of Michael Shaw in Iowa.

Meanwhile, it appears that Molk's recovery is going well and should be on the short side of the 4-6 weeks projected earlier:

Michigan will be without its starting center probably for another two weeks. …

"I still think it's way too early to do anything football-wise with pads on," coach Rich Rodriguez said Tuesday during the Big Ten teleconference. "I know he lifted for a little bit and ran around with the trainer some, but it's still a week or two until he's actually playing football."

Even if he does play, it will be his first game action in a month, and he didn't exactly start the year out great, if I recall correctly (at least by the standards set for him, which are high, since he's considered our best O-lineman).

And yeah, from RR's presser yesterday, sounded like Minor should be full-go this week for the first time this year.

Having Carlos available is huge. He has been an absolute game breaker almost all year and missing that sort of offensive explosion is a huge loss. Shaw has looked good at times this year, but is really unproven. We really need to hope that Minor is good for 15 ish carries against Iowa. Shaw really compliments Minor well, but if both Minor and Brown are out, this could be a rough first start for Shaw.

You'd think at some point I'd learn but I mentioned that "our starting RB is out because he suffered from a concussion at practice" to the A&M (Texas) guy next to me and he's been trying to convince me since RR was hired that RR = Franchione and he comments "we had a lot of guys missing for concussions under Fran." Even our 4-0 start didn't get him off the RR = Fran hyperbole - *bang head on desk*

He's been telling me from day 1 that 1) we won't be able to recruit any decent WRs (still won't admit that he was wrong on this one) 2) we won't be able to recruit any tackles (no idea why he thinks that) and 3) we're going to be mired in the 5-7 to 7-5 range forever. Ugh...

the guy from A&M. (Found, uh, below, I guess...) Have there been any other concussions of note? A "Carlos Brown" injury makes me very unhappy, of course, but "Carlos Brown injury" has occurred with about the same frequency as, "pizza home delivery." "Concussions" concerns me about as much as Rich Rodriguez's "family values" per the Boren family.

But here's a question: So how about Vincent Smith? I remember that back in August, some observers of Michigan's summer camp were talking about Smith like he was a mortal lock to be the number one Michigan RB by the end of the year. Vincent now travels to Iowa City as the number 3 on the depth chart, right? And a real chance to play behind Shaw and a 98% Minor, right?